Poverty in Russia Essay

Poverty is not simply about being on a low income. It is also about having poor health, education and housing. Poverty makes people’s lives shorter and more difficult than they need to be. Measuring poverty is difficult. Nevertheless, it is undisputed that a large share of the Russian population lives below the poverty line. The transition from communism to a market-based economy did not create poverty in Russia, but it certainly made life more difficult for many groups of people. The economic transition also witnessed the â€Å"feminization† of poverty. Single-mother families and single elderly women make up a group with the highest poverty risk. In the case of single-mother families, poverty factors include the low individual income of the mother. The elderly also suffer from insufficient pensions, of which 90 percent go to women. The problem for women retirees is compounded by the fact that a pension, which for this age group is largely the only source of income, are higher for men of retirement age than for women. I think that the main problems in Russia are corruption and bureaucracy. It’s a bureaucracy who steals in most cases. They steal from the state. And they steal from citizens in acts of corruption. However Russia isn’t truly poor country. For example: the Human Development Index in Russia is ‘high’, almost ‘very high’. Russian poverty is unnecessary. Like all poverty in today’s high-productivity age, it is the result of bad policy. In my opinion, Russia has many issues that must be solved. Due to the transition Russia has had many struggles, but in order to help the people of the country, the country of Russia has to discover a way to stabilize itself. Russia has the same issues as any other country and hopefully can solve those issues by studying other countries examples and even some of their own to combat the problems that they have.